


Strange Rings

by The_Gayest_Poptart



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 17:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Gayest_Poptart/pseuds/The_Gayest_Poptart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Hoenn Elite Four and their new champion are faced with several questions, including but not limited to: "Why are these weird portals showing up in Hoenn?" "Where the hell is Steven Stone?" and "Why does every conference take forever?"</p><p>((**This is mostly a little experiment to see if I can use different points of view from chapter-to-chapter.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Fall Asleep in the Name of Science (-Sidney)

            “You can see here that this phenomena occurs not only in mirage spots,” I heard the scientist babble as I drifted back into consciousness. “This photograph here shows the ring in an underwater chamber of the Sea Mauville, and there have been many reports of the rings elsewhere in Hoenn.”

            Out of the corner of my eye I saw Glacia stifle a yawn. I wondered how much longer this would go on for.

            “Have there been any accounts of them appearing before ancients’ reemergence, Professor?” asked Wallace, our new champion. I grimaced slightly and leaned back in my chair.

            “There have been a few stories from before Groudon and Kyogre’s return, though not as many as now. It seems that civilians are getting glimpses of these rings almost every day.”

            “So what should we do about it?” I piped up, wanting to move the conversation along. “What do these rings even do other than float? I mean, are they even a problem?”

            I suddenly realized that Professor Cosmo might have mentioned one, if not all of these things, while I had been asleep.

            “Well, as I said before…” Cosmo sighed, looking slightly distraught that I hadn’t been listening. “The rings tend to vanish before they can be reached. Only once have I ever heard from someone who has been able to see inside of one.”

            Everyone seemed to lean forward with a passive interest (aside from Wallace and Phoebe, who were already genuinely interested in the subject) as he mentioned this.

            “Did I forget to mention this earlier…?” Cosmo mumbled nervously. “There was a trainer I talked to who had come across one of the rings in a cave near Fortree City. She told me that after entering through the ring, she could recall only vestiges of experiences that couldn’t properly be described as experiences. When she regained consciousness, she had somehow ended up near Route 114 and been discovered by a very concerned group of hikers. I don’t know what exactly to make of it.”

 

            After the meeting finally ended, Phoebe trotted up next to me. I noticed a banette walking next to her, looking directly up at me with its glassy pink eyes. Though Phoebe was my closest friend in the Elite Four, I wasn’t too fond of her signature Pokémon type.

            “What do you think, Sidney?” Phoebe asked me cheerfully.

            “About what?” I muttered, though I knew exactly what she was talking about.

            “The rings. Pretty spooky, huh?”

            “Eh… They’re probably not a big deal. That girl Cosmo was talking about probably just hit her head or something.”

            “Aw, you’re no fun, Sidney!” Phoebe laughed. “Imagine that this turns into an adventure for us!”

            “I hope to kyogre this doesn’t,” Wallace huffed as he flicked his bangs away from his face. The guy had probably put a stupid amount of effort into looking good this morning. We’d had a challenger that was supposedly hot stuff scheduled to face us today, but his team only barely made it past Phoebe before Glacia took his last Pokémon down in the first round. It was pretty dismal.

            Wallace had barely been Champion for a few months by now, but he was already beginning to tire of the position. He was the kind of person who put a lot of effort into presentation, which made his job a lot more complicated than it needed to be.

            “Already got too much on your plate, huh?” I smirked. “Call up Steven to substitute for you and take a vacation or someth—Ow, FUCK!”

            Phoebe gave me a swift jab to the ribs with her elbow. I turned away from Wallace and glared at her, doubled over from surprise.

            “Steven has other things to do,” Wallace stated matter-of-factly before turning away from us and vanishing down the League hallway.

            “Hm?” I raised an eyebrow, forgetting about Phoebe’s betrayal of my trust. “What’s up with him?”

            “Steven hasn’t been heard from for a while,” Phoebe muttered. “Wallace is getting really worried about him.”

            It wasn’t unlike Steven to vanish from time to time. Though he was friendly and generally good-natured, he wasn’t too fond of social interaction. When he was champion, he’d often head out on adventures with his Pokémon without telling anyone. I remember personally heading out to drag him back to the league a few times when there were challengers pending. He was an odd guy, and a wicked battler.

            “How long’s he been gone?” I asked. “He’s probably out in a cave somewhere.”

            “About a month,” Phoebe told me as she picked up her banette and cradled it in her arms. “He hasn’t called anyone. It’s… _worrisome_.”

            “A month is a pretty long time, even for Steven, but he probably knows what he’s doing,” I assured her. “If he gets into trouble, he can take care of himself.”

            She didn’t seem too convinced. To be honest, I wasn’t entirely convinced either, but I decided a month wasn’t really anything to panic over.

            “He’ll probably show up by the end of this week,” I added. It would honestly suck if Steven was in trouble, but what would suck much more if there was someone or something out there that could take out someone that strong.


	2. The Mysterious Piece of Garbage that's NOT Sidney (-Phoebe)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phoebe, Sidney, and Wallace discover an unusual clue that may perhaps lead them to Steven's location. Phoebe shamelessly shares her interpretations and opinions of her current and former colleagues.

            I almost felt bad for making Sid feel uneasy there. … _Almost_.

Sidney is incredibly thickheaded. It’s amazing how little he’ll actually notice about others until someone else brings a particular person to his attention.

            I suppose that would make me the opposite? I’m really sensitive to emotions. It runs in my family. We’re incredibly in-tune with the emotions of people and Pokémon alike, and can easily tell if something isn’t sitting right with someone.

            This was why I was nervous. I can tell when someone is putting up a façade. And, from working day-to-day with Wallace, I had grown to understand most of his emotions and personality pretty well. He was enthusiastic and versatile, but also perfectionistic and finicky. Despite his eloquent way of presenting himself, most of what he said and did, even informally, was heavily rehearsed. He was absolutely fascinating to watch in conversation. You could see that when he wasn’t speaking, the gears in his head were turning, devising the next sentence to string together and mass-produce as flowery, poetic phrases.

            One thing Wallace hadn’t figured out, however, was that you can’t really hide anything around me. I can find a person’s weak points pretty easily; weather or not I actually intend to use it against them.

One thing Wallace hadn’t told anyone else was his true relationship with Steven. Everyone knew Wallace and Steven had been close friends since they first appeared on Hoenn’s radar for upcoming master trainers. What people didn’t know was that they had become a lot closer in the past year.

            After the meteoroid issue was resolved, Wallace finally made the effort to steal the title of Champion from Steven, who was more than willing to let go of the responsibility in favor of exploring the world. Steven would often come to visit us in Ever Grande to tell us about his adventures and findings.

            Steven was pretty interesting in his own right. He was a simple person with simple goals and simple pleasures. He was passionate about geology and rock hunting, and could go on for hours about minerals. Despite his simplicity, he was unpredictable in battle. He could devise a strategy to beat any opponent. The cornerstone of his team was his metagross, which essentially looks like a large and angry metal bug. With a mustache.

            About three days after the conference regarding the rings, I was pissing off Sidney while we sat killing time in the dining hall.

            “Sid, my boy,” I was jeering. “That is why you’d be the first of us to be eaten if we were all stranded on an island together.”

            “You’re bullshitting me,” Sidney retorted. “Drake’s old as balls. Why not eat him?”

            “Because Drake’s a sailor guy. He probably has more survival instinct than anyone in the Elite Four.”

            “In that case, why don’t you—“ Sidney stopped mid-complaint as he swung his arm into a rather expensive looking cabinet, sending something toppling off and onto the floor, making a loud and hollow noise that echoed through the cavernous room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw our current champion recoil in his seat and look up from the history book he had been reading.

            “The hell is this thing?” Sidney picked the glass bottle up off the floor. “Who’s drinking fancy-ass champagne without us?!”

            “I don’t really think that’s meant to hold beverages, Sid. That bottle looks like it could easily be older than you,” I glanced up at Wallace, who had regained his composure and was sipping his iced tea while scanning the pages of his book, likely trying to find where he’d left off. “Hey Wall! Do you know what this is for?”

            Wallace pursed his lips and crinkled his thin eyebrows, obviously perturbed at our interruption of his private downtime. He (somewhat indignantly) snapped the book closed in one hand and strode over to our table to get a closer look at the bottle.

            “Steven discovered that flask during one of his many explorations of Hoenn’s less explored sites last month, I believe,” Wallace mused. “He must have forgotten it here by accident when he last visited…”

            Sidney passed the unusually designed bottle to Wallace, who tenderly inspected it. “This is in impeccable condition, considering Steven found it beneath a pile of rubble. I doubt it was made in Hoenn; it must have been brought over by nomads more than a century ago.”

            Steven had obviously picked this up for Wallace. Wallace has an appreciation for man-made artifacts and archeology. He isn’t nearly as forward about his passions as Steven, but he never fails to demonstrate his knowledge when the opportunity arrives. Wallace is a complete _nerd_.

            “Uh, speaking of,” Sidney mumbled. “Has Steven shown up yet?”

            There was a small pause in the conversation. Wallace didn’t look up from the bottle, but he was visibly distressed.

            “Not to my knowledge,” he sighed. “Though he’s probably alright.”

            I then had an idea. “Actually, that thing can lead us to Steven!”

            “It can?” Sidney asked, looking simultaneously skeptical and profoundly oblivious.

            “Yes. Objects have memories, just like people and Pokémon. When we interact with an object, we leave our energy on it, like a footprint. A handful of people and ghost Pokémon can detect that energy and use it to identify or find the person it matches with.”

            “So you can use your weird ghost things to smell Steven’s soul or whatever?”

            “That’s an… interpretation… of the idea,” I replied. “But yeah, that’s basically it.”

            Wallace seemed to be toying with the thought in his head. After a few moments, he passed the bottle over to me. “After five weeks, I believe our concerns are justified. If Mr. Stone is perturbed to have us tracking him down, he should have had the decency to check in with us.”


End file.
